Key Point: “[T]he wide slashing has worsened services Americans receive and hindered remaining staff working on areas like improving healthcare and lowering energy bills. … In many parts of the country, the Trump administration’s job cuts have hit services and constituencies that Trump pledged to protect.”

Wall Street Journal: The Unintended Consequences of Trump’s Firing Spree

By Lindsay Ellis

• The Trump administration has started cutting tens of thousands of jobs through a plan encouraged by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency …
  
• Managers say essential staff have been cut, and that the administration hasn’t followed detailed rules on how to enact widespread layoffs. … So far, many cuts haven’t taken into account workers’ performance or the necessity of their roles.
  
• In interviews, more than 60 current and former federal workers said the wide slashing has worsened services Americans receive and hindered remaining staff working on areas like improving healthcare and lowering energy bills. It also has discouraged top talent from working for the federal government.
  
• Staff cuts have reduced or slowed services for health, education and even operations like weather forecasting.

• Complaints have piled up, slowing efforts to ensure school access for disabled children in an office where staff were already overworked, she said. “A child is not able to go to school right now until something is in place,” said DeLano, who has advocated against the cuts through her union, the American Federation of Government Employees.

• In many parts of the country, the Trump administration’s job cuts have hit services and constituencies that Trump pledged to protect.
  
• Chief among them is the Department of Veterans Affairs, which plans to cut about 70,000 positions and has already laid off thousands. The agency employs about 470,000 people.
  
• Fewer VA staff are handling veterans’ claims that will get them treatment for military-service injuries and mental health conditions, two current employees said. This has already resulted in veterans waiting longer to get treatment in North Texas, one said.
  
• The Office of Personnel Management on Wednesday told agencies that collective-bargaining agreement provisions that “excessively interfere with management’s rights” to lay off employees aren’t enforceable. It urged agencies not to respond to every request for information from unions.